IBMT Magazine www.international-brigades.org.uk Issue 44 / 1-2017 INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE MEMORIALTRUST Allth eway to Jarama ClemBeckettplaywows audiencesandcritics LIBE RTY’S VOLUNTEERS THETIMELESSLEGACYOFTHESPANISHCIVILWAR Saturda y18March2017attheManchesterConferenceCentre,78SackvilleSt,ManchesterM13BB www.manchesterconferencecentre.co.uk/01619558000 10.30am Registration oftheBritonswhoFoughtinthe CivilWar:anechothroughthe 11am Welcomeandintroduction: SpanishCivilWar’andIBMTChair) decades–talkbyGilesTremlett, ProfessorPeterCrome 12pm Lunch/Exhibitions/Stalls journalistandauthorof‘Ghostsof Spain:TravelsthroughSpainand 11.15am Internationalvolunteers: 1.30pm TributetoDavidLeachby itsSilentPast’ whotheywereandwhythey ManusO’Riordan(IBMTIreland foughtfascisminSpain–talkbyDr Secretary)followedbyDavid’sfilm 3.30pm SongsfromtheSpanish RichardBaxell(authorof‘Unlikely ‘VoicesfromtheMountain’ CivilWarperformedbyMikeWild Warriors:TheExtraordinaryStory 2.30pm ThelegacyoftheSpanish 4pm Close G £15:buffetandentrance(payment Blackburn,LancsBB27AT01254 InternationalBrigade inadvanceby28February2017) 51302/[email protected] G £10:entranceonly(paymenton G Forfurtherinformation: MemorialTrust2017 theday) DoloresLong01612262013/ G PaymenttoIBMTbycheque/ [email protected] 2017LenCromeMemorialConference PayPal/banktransferto:Charles HilaryJones01625527540/ www.international-brigades.org.uk Jepson,Aysgaard,BeardwoodBrow, [email protected] l l e b p m a C - IBMT MAGAZINE n a y R Issueno.44 e r i h 1-2017 p p a S Coverpicture DavidHeywoodis ClemBeckettin theplay‘Dare DevilRidesto Jarama’,currently ontourinBritain.Seepages10-11formore abouttheplayandcheckthenoticeonthe backcoverfor2017tourdates. 5 FarewelltoStanHilton,thelastBritish InternationalBrigadevolunteer 7 MichaelDHiggins,PresidentofIreland, deliveredaperceptiveaddresstotheIBMT’s 2016AnnualGeneralMeeting 12 Secretarialnotes,includingawelcometo thenewExecutiveCommittee NEW HOME FOR PLAQUE: EmilyThornberryMP Doyle,JackJones,SamLesserandAlanMenaiWilliams. 14 Murdermysterysolved (centre),theShadowForeignSecretary,atthe Two years later it was cut into three pieces in an act of heEbroplaqueinits vandalism perpetrated bySpanish neo-fascists. 16 Letters unveilingoftheoriginalBattleoft newlocationinthememorialgardenoftheMarx The plaque inSpain has since been replaced. But 17 Profile:QuakernurseMaryElmes MemorialLibraryinLondon.Picturedwithherare the original was brought to Britain by the IBMT, to be IBMTSecretaryJimJump(left)andIBMT President unveiled, for a second time, on 30 October 2016, 19 Italiananti-fascists:theLondonlink MarleneSidaway. marking the 80th anniversary of the formation of the the IBMT on Hill 705 International Brigades. 20 SpanishRepublicansintheSecond The plaque, first installed by on the Ebro battlefield, names the 90 members of the Speaking at the event, EmilyThornberry praised WorldWar British Battalion killed in fighting from July to the internationalism of the volunteers who went to 22 HungariansintheInternationalBrigades September 1938. It was unveiled in May 2005 in the Spain.They had shown that British people’s concerns presence of International Brigade veterans Bob did not ‘end at the WhiteCliffs of Dover’. 23 Books,includinganewstudyoftheUS responsetothewarinSpain,plusafamily history-inspirednovelwhichisbeing publishedtocoincidewiththisyear’s80th anniversaryofthebombingofGuernica TheIBMTMagazine (formerlytheIBMT Newsletter )ispublishedthreetimesayear andissentfreetoallmembers.Backnumbers canbedownloadedfromtheIBMTwebsiteon [www.international-brigades.org.uk / newsletter.htm].Allcontentisthe copyright©oftheIBMTandcredited contributorsandcannotbereproduced withoutwrittenpermission. Editor JimJump 37aClerkenwellGreen,LondonEC1R0DU 02072538748 [email protected] InternationalBrigadeMemorialTrust www.international-brigades.org.uk Registeredcharityno.1094928 FLAGGED UP: Labour leader JeremyCorbyn MP (centre) joins IBMT IrelandSecretary (right) andTower Hamlets Mayor John Biggs in holding aSpanish Republican flag dedicated to Irish International Brigaders at the 80th anniversary commemoration of the Battle ofCableStreet in London’s East End on 9 October 2016. CableStreet has been called ‘the road toSpain’ because many of the protesters who stopped the police from clearing a wayfor a march byfascist Blackshirts in what was then the heart of London’s Jewish community went on to join the International Brigades.This photo ofCorbyn with the flag was widely disseminated on social media. Retweeting the image, Pablo Iglesias, leader ofSpan’s Podemos party, said: ‘Thankyou JeremyCorbyn for paying tribute to the heroes and heroines who came from Britain to defend democracy in our country.’ n u e o s e r T G n e y L e n r a B PARISMEMORIAL:French-bornSpanishCivilWar IN GLASGOW: VeraDehle-Thälmann(above,centre),granddaughterof veteranVicenteAlmudéver(above),aged97,infront pre-warGermancommunistleaderErnstThälmann,wasoneofthe ofthenewmemorialtotheInternationalBrigades speakersattheannualcommemorationatthePasionariamemorialto unveiledon22October2016outsidetheGare theInternationalBrigadesinGlasgowon10September2016.Thälmann d’AusterlitzinParis,therailwaystationusedbymost spenttheSpanishCivilWarinaNaziconcentrationcamp,butgavehis volunteerstravellingsouthtotheSpanishborder. nametothebattalionofmainlyGermanvolunteersinSpain. IN MEXICO: Karl Lewkowicz (above, left), co-writer of the award- winning musical ‘Goodbye Barcelona’, meets Juan Miguel de Mora Vazquerizo, the last Mexican veteran of theSpanishCivil War, on a visit to MexicoCity lastAugust. Like most othervolunteers from Latin America, Juan, born in MexicoCity to a Mexican father andSpanish mother, fought inSpanish units rather than the International Brigades. He abandoned his studies in Paris to go toSpain, taking part in the 1938 Battle of the Ebro as a 16- year-old. After the war he had a distinguished career as a writer and professor ofSanskrit at MexicoCity’s main university. Karl was in MexicoCityfor a video screening of ‘Goodbye Barcelona’, which is about a group of British International Brigaders. It was NORTH-EASTVOLUNTEERS:Thismemorialboardoutside whilefightingwiththeInternationalBrigades.Thedriving shown at the Ateneo Español, where NewcastleCivicCentrewasunveiledon7November2016by forcebehindtheideaofthisadditiontotheexistingSpanish the archives ofSpanish Republican NewcastleLordMayorHazelStephenson.Part-financedbythe CivilWarmemorialinNewcastlewasIBMTmemberandlocal exiles who went to Mexico are kept. IBMT,itnamesthe35North-EastmenwhowerekilledinSpain historianDonWatson. OBITUARY StanHilton FarewelltothelastknownBritish veteranoftheSpanishCivilWar Stan Hilton, the last surviving Briton who fought in the legendary International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, died on 21 October 2016 in Australia, aged 98. Stan was a 19-year-old merchant seaman when he jumped ship in the port of Alicante in November 1937. ‘The Spanish people needed help,’ he later explained. ‘It was the right thing to do.’ He made his way to Albacete and enlisted with the British Battalion of the 15th International Brigade. He saw action that winter around Teruel. Then in the spring of 1938 the battalion was routed as General Franco’s forces, aided by troops sent by Mussolini and by Hitler’s Condor Legion, swept through Aragon and Catalonia. ‘It was every man for himself,’ said Stan, who As Stan Hilton’s death was announced, Australian eventually reached Barcelona, where he caught freelance journalist DENIS ROGATYUK had just finished a ship home. preparing a profile of our ‘last man standing’ for the Born in Newhaven, Sussex, on 31 December IBMT Magazine . This is what he wrote… 1917, Stan Hilton went on to serve in the lthough fit and healthy until near the end of his life, Stan merchant navy throughout the Second World Hilton, the 98-year old veteran of the Spanish CivilWar and War. In the 1950s he emigrated with his family ASecondWorldWar, could no longer recall his four-month to Australia, where he worked mostly as a tiler adventure in Spain in late 1937 and early 1938. Thankfully, his son in the building trade. He died in a nursing home Gordon and grandson Adam still keep alive the stories and in Ocean Grove, near Melbourne. recollections he told them over many years. Stan was born into poverty and hardship. His first memories were Some 2,500 volunteers from Britain and Ireland of being dumped at a workhouse near Brighton. He was then fostered joined the International Brigades during the before ending up in a school where orphans were trained for domestic service. civil war of 1936-39, and 526 of them died in the But things got even worse and, still a teenager, he began sleeping bitter war that saw the elected government of rough in Brighton, until one day a policewoman secured a place for him the Spanish Republic toppled by a fascist- on a marine training course. This was around 1933. As a ship’s steward backed military rebellion. he served on several merchant navy ships, going to ports around the world. Stan’s death is the end of an era – but not the It was in November 1937, while on the Oakworth, when he jumped end of a story. The IBMT will continue to keep ship in the Spanish port of Alicante. On the voyage south there had alive the memory and spirit of Stan and the been an altercation with a ship’s officer, which ended in fisticuffs. The officer was ‘a real swine’, and Stan had a short fuse in those days – he other volunteers who fought fascism and was a bit of a fighter. defended democracy in Spain.